that awkward moment
by Call-Me-Crazy.Cuz I Am
Summary: /"Emma Swan prides herself on her self-control, but that all goes out the window the moment she steps into Biology her sophomore year of college and meets her Irish lab partner, Killian Jones."/ Or, the story of how Emma Swan fell in love with her best friend, things that are not just rivers in Egypt, alcohol tolerance, and the effects of midnight tequila.


_We're on top of the world  
We're on top of the world, now darling, so don't let go  
Can I call you mine?  
So can I call you mine now, darling  
For a whole life time?  
My heart finally trusts my mind  
And I know somehow it's right_

* * *

Emma Swan prides herself on her self-control, but that all goes out the window the moment she steps into Biology her sophomore year of college and meets her Irish lab partner, Killian Jones.

She goes from wanting to kill him, strangle him with his own goddamn sweater (y'know, the blue one that makes his eyes pop and offsets his hair and is almost unfair to Emma's lady parts?), to wanting to pull the fire alarm just so she can clear out the classroom and have her way with him on the damn table.

And Emma's not usually such an emotionally neurotic person; eighteen years of emotionally absent parents put an ice-cold mask on her face and hardness in her heart, and so she's not the type to show emotion, or whatever, period. Her poker face is her lifeline, because without it there's no telling what she might show.

But Killian makes all that go away, shoves it out the window whenever he gets animated about Irish writers (because the bastard is a damn Lit major. As if he knows Emma's got a thing for guys with books and accents) and his eyes start flashing and his voice gets heavy with passion. He sends her resolve packing to hell with all of the quips and the laughter and the really sweet things, like studying with her when it becomes obvious she's shit at biology, or bringing her coffee whenever she texts him to tell him that this whole college thing is about to send her over the edge.

And she likes Killian; he's kind of a dork, sometimes, but she likes him, so one rainy Thursday as he's packing up his stuff, she tells him to clear his schedule because he's coming out with her and her friends to their favorite bar, and she's going to force feed him tequila shots until he's as bad at Biology as she is.

"Bloody hell, Swan," he says, and there's that particular brand of blue laughter in his eyes that she's beginning to recognize happens when he's happy, "That's going to be a hell of a lot of alcohol, if that last lab is anything kind of marker."

"Shut the hell up, Jones," she growls back at him. "I'll text you the address. Be there by eight."

* * *

So of course, he shows up, in the jeans that make her want to check out his ass so bad (but she doesn't because Emma Swan is a woman of standards. Seriously, she's only looked like twice. Really) and that stupid sweater that matches her eyes, and her step-brother's sweeter-than-sugar girlfriend, Mary Margaret, nudges her.

"That's Killian, right? The one you have a crush on?"

"I do not have a crush on him," Emma hisses. "You crazy person."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mary Margaret grins and nudges Emma's step-brother David. "David, honey, do you hear that? Because I hear something. It seems like the burbling sounds of _de nile_."

"That thing that isn't just a river in Egypt?" David grins and plays along. "I think I hear that, babe. But it's hard to focus on, over that stench of _bullshit_."

"I definitely agree," Mary Margaret nods. "In fact, I can-"

"All right, I get it," Emma grumbles. "It's not true, but I get him. Crazy-ass-"

"Swan!" Killian calls the moment his eyes reach her, and she may-or-may-not squeak.

"Oh, yeah," David smirks. "Totally platonic."

"Definitely," Mary Margaret nods, and Emma growls and flips them both off.

"Jones," She calls back, and he makes his way over to them. "You ready to get tequila'd off your ass?"

* * *

But of course, besides being a freaking Lit major, Irish, and good at Biology, Killan Jones has an insane alcohol tolerance, and they're eight shots deep and even Emma's getting a little bit wasted, but he just sits there and laughs at her incredulous expression.

"How," she hiccups, "Are you not drunk off your face right now? We easily just drank through my Biology grade and probably my eighth-grade Algebra, too, and you're still functioning."

"Well I can't exactly hold this over your head if I'm not sober enough to remember it, can I, love?" He smirks at her, and she downs another shot and leans in close.

"So was that the plan?" she asks him. "Get me drunk? So you could hold it over my head? Or so you could take me home?"

"Oh, Swan," he says, and he takes the glass from her hand. "Trust me. I wouldn't need to get you drunk to take you home."

And the bastard has the balls to wink and smirk, and no, Emma is not turned on at all, she's pissed off.

She's serious.

100%.

(Oh, god, she's in _so_ much trouble.)

* * *

Sometime in between downing shots like cupcakes and just being hot, Killian Jones ended up becoming (get this) friends with David and Robin and some of the other guys, so now not only does Emma see him like all the time, he does not get any less attractive. Ever.

The moment Emma knows she's screwed and will eventually end up throwing him into a closet somewhere and having her wicked wanton way with him is when she stops by David's apartment to pick up some of the PoliSci notes he took when he was a sophomore (her brother's a big senior, now) and she figures she doesn't have to knock, because she has a key and she's only walked in on David and Mary Margaret doing the nasty once. She opens the door, says hey to the boys, who are playing some video game on the TV, and heads down the hallway into David's room, which is messy like it always is, and digs through his drawers for the notes. She's walking out with them when the bathroom door opens and out steps Killian Goddamn Jones, water dripping down those dark locks and onto his shoulders and running rivulets down his back, only a towel tied around his waist.

"Seriously?" Emma growls. "Seriously? In my _brother's_ apartment?"

"I'm sorry, Swan," he retorts, "But I wasn't aware you had jurisdiction over this particular shower-"

"Who the hell comes out of the shower looking like _that_-"

"Looking like _what_?" he snaps at her. "Wet? Clean? Perhaps _relaxed_?"

And Emma's shitty with words, always has been, so she just huffs and rushes out, and tries to ignore the rush of heat that's currently coursing its way through her body.

* * *

She's at Mary Margaret's apartment with girls, painting her nails and glaring at Mary's stepsister Regina, when Ruby says, "So, that hot Irishman you like to pal around with. How's he in the sack?" and Emma chokes on one of Mary's chocolate-chip cookies, swears, and spills some black-blue nail polish on herself.

"_What_?"

"Oh, come _on_, Em," Ruby grins at her. "You can't tell me you've never hit that. Be honest: is he a good lay? Because he looks like he's an _amazing_ lay."

"Um-"

"Down, Ruby," Regina says apathetically, slacking a third coat of red polish onto her toenails. "If she doesn't want to talk, she doesn't have to talk."

Mary Margaret smiles proudly at her step-sister, but Emma just gets pissed, because she does _not_ need tight ass Regina sticking up for her.

She sticks out her chin. "He's an _amazing_ lay."

Mary Margaret drops pink polish onto the floor, Regina raises an eyebrow, Ruby squeals, and _ohmigod Emma did not just do that_.

Ruby claps her hands."I _totally_ knew it! He's hung, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Emma nods, focusing on her nails to try and hide her blush. "He's _hung_."

"Ugh," Ruby groans, flopping down on Mary Margaret's bed cushions. "Foreign guys always are. Why can't I get a piece of that pie? You get the Irishman, Regina gets Robin-"

"What?" Mary cries and now Regina's the one who's blushing. "You're dating _Robin_?"

"Oh, sweetie," Ruby shakes her head. "She's tapping that."

"_Seriously?_" Regina says, blowing on her toes and trying to remain indifferent.

"Are you or are you not currently having coitus with Robin Locksley, the British exchange student who knows his way around a forest and _apparently_ a bedroom?"Mary demands and Regina blushes harder.

"_OH MY GOD, REGINA_-" Mary Margaret yelps.

"Did she just say _coitus_?" Ruby raises an eyebrow. "Oh, sweet Jesus, she's _adorable_."

And Emma laughs, too, but she's kind of freaking out inside, because she j_ust told all her friends she's sleeping with Killian_, which she wouldn't necessarily object to, but which as of right now is _not true_.

Emma Swan is many things, but she'd really hate to think she's a liar, so there's only one way to fix this.

* * *

She leaves MM's apartment at like 2 p.m. the next afternoon, spends five hours watching Gossip Girl to get her head in the game, curls her hair the way she knows he likes it, puts on her good underwear and some perfume, and calls him.

"Swan? I can't actually talk right now-" his voice is crackly through the speakers, which might be a good thing because it means he can't hear how fast her heart is beating.

"Hey, Jones," she says, and fiddles with the edge of the nightdress she's wearing. "So, um. I think we should sleep together."

(From the amount of static that's coming through the speakers, she guesses he dropped the phone, or he's at a football match of some sort.)

"I'm sorry, _what_?" he says when he picks it up again.

"Um, you know, I think we should, uh, stop prolonging the inevitable and just, um, get it over with."

"Uh, Swan, I think I maybe should call you back-" nervousness is coloring his voice and Emma needs to backtrack, like, yesterday.

"Don't you _dare_! I need to get this out. I mean, we're both adults, and um, you know, I think you find me attractive and I definitely find you attractive, so it was bound to happen at some point, and maybe we should just go ahead and do it-"

"Swan-"

He hangs _up_.

And Emma's not about to let such assholeish behavior go unpunished, so she calls him back

"Do you, like, not _want_ to?" she says the moment he answers, and there's muffled sounds that she doesn't recognize in the background, and Emma's freaking out now, because in all of the scenarios in her head, the one where he didn't want her was the scariest, and _ohmigod she's just shot their entire friendship to hell_, and it's sucky because other than Mary and David he's her best friend and _oh my god_ what has she done? "Because. Um, that's cool, I guess I just thought, I'm sorry, this is- this is so embarrassing. I just- I mean, you gave off all those _signs_ that you wanted to, and I feel like such an idiot because I'm sitting here with those stupid curls you used to play with stare at in biology and this really slutty thing MM forced me to buy last Black Friday and-"

"Emma." He says sternly. "_Stop. Talking._"

"Look, this is probably awkward for you, too, but you don't have to be a dick about it-" Emma begins indignantly

"Emma, what's today's date?"

"Um. December 18th?"

"Right. And what's December 18th?"

"I don't kn-" She begins, and then it sinks in because if she was embarrassed before, she's about to melt into a puddle now. "Oh. My. God. That- family dinner thing you said you had in Boston-"

"And what's my family's policy on cellphones going off at dinner?"

"You have to-" and now the blood is draining out of Emma's face and oh my god, _no_. NO. This cannot be happening to her. "You have to answer them. At the table. And put it-"

On.

_Speaker._

How did Emma forget about this? She teased him about it for months, _months _("It's stupid," he'd said with a grin, "But sufficiently embarrassing to prevent us from being on our phones.") and he's been complaining about having his mom nag him about girls-

which Emma guesses she won't have to do anymore, because she just threw herself at him via the telephone and the whole goddamn time-

his family heard _everything_.

Emma Swan, impenetrable, hardhearted, bad-ass Emma Swan just had a tween girl style confession to her _best friend_, and his family heard it all.

Does it _get_ worse than this?

* * *

The answer is yes, because while she does a good job with disappearing whenever he shows up to hang out with the group and switches Bio partners and goes home early for Christmas break and dodges him pretty much every chance she gets, her idiot brother invites him to spend Christmas with them at Casa De Nolan in their tiny hometown of Storybrooke.

And because Killian Jones exists to torment her, he says yes.

And David doesn't even warn her, so there she is, the Tuesday before Christmas, bundled up in Charlie Brown pajamas and a Power-Puff girls sweater, eating some Fruit Loops, and the doorbell rings, and when she opens it, David's there and so is Killian.

And behind him the snow swirls but he has this little grin on his face, and there's that heat, again, and-

"Holy _fu_-" she swears, and drops her Fruit Loops. "What the hell are you _doing_ here?"

"Your brother invited me," he says, rightfully sheepish, and behind him David waves cheerfully, as if she's not three seconds from permanently denouncing him as her brother.

Emma growls, slams her now-empty cereal bowl on the counter, and heads for her room.

"By the way, Swan," he calls after her. "Power-Puff Girls are a good look for you."

* * *

Emma seriously contemplates spending the majority of her Christmas in her room, boycotting life and blue-eyed Irishman, but her bastard of a brother puts The Grinch on, and there's no way she's bitching out of her favorite movie, so she comes out and eats some of MM's sugar-cinnamon cookies and tried to pretend she doesn't see Killian look at her out of the corner of his eye.

When it's over she crawls off the couch and tried to slink back into her room, and she's halfway down the hallway when he says, "Subtlety is truly not your strong suit, is it, Swan?"

And it's Emma, so of course she turns around too quickly, hits her head on the wall, and swears profusely.

"You _bastard_," She seethes, because the Grinch may have put her in a good mood but she's in no way happy enough to deal with Killian Jones and his dinner table phone calls of death.

"C'mere," he says, and he grabs her hands and pulls her to him. "Let me see it, Swan."

"Why the hell-"

"Emma," he says earnestly, and that's when she knows it's serious because she can count on one hand the amount of times he's called her by her first name. "Let me see it."

So she does, and he slides his fingers softly around her scalp until he finds the bump, and he snorts. "It's the size of a thumbtack, Swan, really."

And Emma growls because so what if she has a low pain tolerance or something? Doesn't mean she won't kick his Irish ass.

"Seriously, though," he says solemnly. "We need to talk."

"About?"

"About why you're angry with me and why you're ignoring me," he says and she looks at him incredulously.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps it's because of that embarrassing phone call your entire family heard?" she whisper-yells, trying to keep her voice down so David doesn't come sniffing.

"Did you ever stop to wonder, Swan, that maybe you're not the only one who's embarrassed?" he snaps back. "Yes, you said somethings you might regret saying in front of my family, but at least you got to hang up! I had to sat there for the rest of the dinner and all of the day afterwards, in their bloody hypocrisy and disappointment, the looks on their faces that say I've mucked it all up again."

"Boohoo for you," Emma says impatiently, because she has 0 tact. "So mummy was disappointed in you."

"You're wrong there, Swan, because _mummy_ couldn't be disappointed in me, she abandoned us years ago. _Auntie_ was disappointed in me, but why wouldn't she be I practically got a_ booty call_ in the middle of dinner. I hadn't seen any of them in ages, Emma, and the one time I get to prove to them I'm not the screw-up they think I am, you do _that_. " Killian snaps back at her, and Emma thought she knew every shade of his eyes, their every look, but now it's different, because she's never seen them cold and hard and angry like they are now.

Is this how I am? she thinks. Is this what I look like?

"I didn't know," she begins lowly, lamely, because she didn't and oh dear Jesus she is _such a bitch_.

"Yes, well, you wouldn't have, you were too busy ignoring me." he bites at her. "You spend so much time hiding your pain, you can't see anyone else's. It's like you think you're the only one who's hurting, Emma. Or maybe it's that your hurt is the only one that matters. "

"Killian-" she starts, but he stalks back into the guest room and she's left alone, leaning against the wall, feeling like a terrible person, because even if her parents are emotionally unavailable she still has David, and Killian doesn't have anyone.

At least, not sense she practically ex-communicated him for the past month.

Yep, she thinks. I am such a bitch.

* * *

He knocks on her door the next morning, and she lets him in; he sits on the edge of her childhood bed and says, "Enough of this nonsense. I don't like fighting with you, Swan. So you were embarrassed and I was once-again branded the Jones family fuck-up. Oh, well. We're both equally pissed. Can we move past it, now?"

And just like that, all of the embarrassment and frustration and _ugh_ melts from Emma's body, and she looks at him and says, "Are you ready to hang the hell out of some ornaments?" like the past month hasn't happened at all.

* * *

What does happen is that sometime after their make-up over Christmas break and the remainder of their sophomore year, she and Killian get closer than they've ever been before, and coming fall of junior year, an infestation of butterflies takes root in Emma's stomach, an infestation that apparently has a thing for Killian's smile, but Emma's pretty sure it doesn't mean anything because she once got butterflies over Victor when she was eight shots deep and on the rebound.

But then the butterflies don't go away ever, and when they're at the bar and this blonde comes up and runs her hand down his arm and Emma feels like going over there and very calmly telling her to back the hell up, that's when she thinks that maybe this means something.

And she's always liked Killian, and she's definitely always lusted for him, but this is the first time she's _liked_ him, caught herself fantasizing about doing cute things, not naughty things, things like baking with matching aprons and letting him teach her how to sail like he's always wanted to.

And she starts looking at him not as a hot guy, but as the guy who once bought her tampons when she ran out ("I don't know what kind to get you," he'd muttered into the phone, and Emma'd groaned. "_Seriously_? Do I need to spell it out for you? Tampax super." "Oh, super? Bloody hell." he'd smirked, and she'd blushed. "Shut the fuck up, asshole.") to all the times he'd pulled Bio allnighters for her ("Are you _trying_ not to get it?" he'd grumbled, but he'd still stayed until seven the following morning) to all the times he'd trekked to her apartment and helped her out when she'd been sick ("Shut the fuck up and drink the soup," he'd commanded her and she'd sneezed, glared, and obeyed.), the hot guy who has literally been there for her since the word _go_.

And Emma thinks that maybe just maybe this is the universe telling her to give up on life, because it will never get any less shitty and awkward.

"What's on your mind, Swan?" he says one night when it's one in the morning and they're joint cramming for a Bio final.

She swallows. "Nothing."

"I can smell that bullshit from over here," he informs her, not bothering to look up, turning a page in his study guide. "What's bothering you?"

"Oh, it's just," She decides to go elementary school this bitch. "I've got this friend, and she likes this guy but she doesn't know if she wants to tell him, and she's bitching up about it to me and it's just stressing me out."

"Mhm," he says, eyes still trained on the Bio study guide. "If he's a regular bloke, he's oblivious and he won't know until she tells him. Tell her to make a move."

"What if it ruins their friendship? They're best friends." Emma says nervously, and he sighs and puts the guide down.

"If they're really best friends they'll work through it, and if they can't, there was a probably a bigger issue somewhere, anyway," He says, and cocks his head to the left. "Who's this friend of yours? You seem awfully invested. Wish you got this passionate about Biology."

"You know you love helping me," she says dismissively. "It makes you feel like a man."

"And my heart sings, and when ever you ask me about chromosomes I just get this _tingling_-" he cuts off when she throws a pillow at him (the bastard catches it.)

* * *

She can't get what he said out of the way so she decides, screw it, balls to the wall, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to do it,

So she does.

Right in the middle of the station, where he's about to board his train to Boston, she kisses him, in front of all of their friends (MM and Ruby squeal, Regina cracks a smile, and the boys catcall) and about five hundred strangers.

And damn, if it isn't overwhelmingly right, if she doesn't want to just melt into his lips because he is such a good kisser, and if they had more time she'd trace his lips with her tongue, but his train is boarding right now, so she lets him go and says, "Jones, when you come back, we're going to have a _discussion_."

And he grins a shit-eating grin at her and says, "Don't scare while I'm gone, Swan."

* * *

But she _does_ scare, and the problem is ballsy!Emma disappears about a week into his departure, and she gets kind of insecure, as hard as that is to believe, because yeah, she's kissed him, but what if he gets back and decides, no, I don't really like that, thanks but no thanks, and if there's one thing Emma Swan cannot handle, it's getting rejected when she's vulnerable, and she's made herself pretty vulnerable, all things considered.

So she does what she does best: she runs, and when he comes back from Boston she's not waiting for him at the train station, and she 's dropped Bio and transferred out of all their shared classes, and she stops hanging out with the boys when he's around, period, and calls David before she appears at his apartment to see if Killian's there; she cuts her ties cleanly and thoroughly and breaks his heart before he can break hers.

And bits of her want to say it's better like this, but she knows it really, truly, honestly, isn't.

* * *

Emma's pretty damn good at scheduling her life so she does one thing and Killian does another and never the two shall meet, but her idiot step-brother steps in and double-books them for a LOtR marathon.

So she gets there and strolls in, and there's Killian, sitting at the kitchen table, and a second ago she heard him laughing but the moment he sees her his eyes harden over and get this really cold, tough, angry look in them, and if she was trying to hurt him before he hurt her then she really did a number on him.

He gets up and leaves, walks over to the couch and sits there and acts like she doesn't exist, and she keeps waiting for him to grab her wrist and pull her into a storage closet or a hallway or the goddamn balcony so they could have a talk that would end with him forgiving her and her letting go of her fear for a little bit.

But he doesn't; he sits there, silent, and he stares at the TV all through the first half of _The Fellowship of the Ring_, and god, he's pissed. Emma's seen him angry but the look on his face says if the cup in his hand was glass he'd probably shatter it.

And David recognizes this and pauses the LOtR marathon ten minutes into _The Two Towers_ and says, "So, I think Emma and Killian need to have a talk, guys."

"What-" Emma begins, flushing immediately, but Killian cuts her off.

"No." he says. and Emma can't blame him for being upset, but it still hurts, how cold his voice is. "No, we don't."

"Yeah, well, my house," David replies. "Now go outside and make nice. _Now_."

And Killian may be pissed, but he's not trying to start some shit right now, in front of everyone, so he goes out on David's balcony, and Emma goes to follow him but her step-brother grabs her arm and looks at her very seriously.

"I love you, Emma, but you did a number on him," David says sternly. "You really hurt him, with all your on again off again shit. You made it seem like you liked him, and then the next minute you were severing all ties and giving him the Emma freeze out, so go outside and make it right."

And Emma feels like a shit person as she goes out, because, um, well, she's been acting like one recently.

"I don't have anything to say to you," he says shortly when she closes the screen door. His back is to her, like looking at her would just piss him off more, or maybe like it'd be more painful. "So can we pretend we mended all fences for your brother and then head back inside?"

"He'll never believe that," Emma says. "He's perceptive."

"I know," Killian says wryly. "But he'll know when to give up. A trait which, unfortunately, I can't boast of."

"Killian-"

"I felt like such an idiot," He shakes his head. "I got off that train and when you weren't there and you didn't show up for the next week and you dropped Bio and I just felt like such a blockhead. Of course you weren't there. Of course you didn't want anything to do with me. You run. It's what you do."

"I care about you," She says, and her tongue is thick in her mouth. "Can't we just- forget about this and go back to how we were before?"

"You mean before you kissed me and bailed? Back when I was pretending not to be hurt from that other time you decided it was less painful for all parties involved to just ignore me? Or back when we were just friends and I had a stupid crush on you but didn't tell you about it because I knew you'd do some shit like this?" His shoulders tense. "You act like you can't trust me, Emma, and I have never given you any reason to think that."

"It makes sense," Emma says, trying to make him understanding, pleading with him. "I just thought-"

"What? That'd you'd hurt me before I hurt you?" and Emma flushes because yeah, that's exactly what she thought.

"I would've been a wreck," she says quietly. "Because I put up all these walls and cold fronts because I figure they're a warning. Hurricane Emma, coming through, the one that destroys anything and everything, and then you started being there, just _being_ there, and that scared me, because what if you looked into the eye of the storm and didn't like what you saw? What if I let you in all the way and you left me? No," she shakes her head. "I'm not going out like that. And I'm sorry I hurt you, but-"

"You don't regret it." he finishes for her, and his tone is icy and disgusted. "Of course not. You still only care about preventing your own hurt." he turns around, looks her in the eyes.

"I would've proven myself to you," he says. "I would've fought for you. But you didn't let me."

And this is the worst part, because Emma has nothing to blame for that but herself.

* * *

"So this is it?" She says. "This is the end of our friendship? That's all?"

"I am not the one who wanted this, Emma," he says shortly. "I'm not the one."

And he turns and tries to go around her, but she stays in his way and grabs his wrist and pulls him so they're face to face, centimeters apart, and her eyes flick down to his lips, and he says lowly, "Don't you dare. If you are not absolutely sure, don't you _dare_."

And is Emma sure? That's the question.

And the answer is yes. And it comes to her in the midst of all of the emotional turmoil; she's standing there, so very close to him, and she just has this moment of emotional clarity, and she knows it's yes.

So she leans forward and kisses him, and he kisses back for a second before pulling away roughly, so Emma counts it as progress.

"I'm sorry," she says hastily, because she's realizing that's the one thing she hasn't said to him, the one thing she hasn't truly meant. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't know if I believe you," he says honestly. "And I do know that I"m still extremely angry, and that one day I'm going to stop chasing after you."

"But," she breathes back at him, "It is not this day, is it?" (she really hopes he gets the reference)

He pauses for a few long moments. "This isn't me forgiving you," he says sternly, and her heart leaps because he didn't say no.

"Oh my god, Killian," she says, and she might hug him but she gets the feeling it's too soon, so she goes for gripping his forearms instead. "But this isn't you hating me, right?"

"I think I was in love with you for far too long to hate you," he says, and even though her friends and family and even he has alluded to it, this is the first time he's ever said those three words in that context, and Emma could spin, if she hadn't fucked it all up so badly.

But it's not that badly, because when she says, "Thank god. I think I'm crushing too hard on you to handle you hating me.", his eyes take on the shade of blue that means he's laughing at her, and she can tell he's still angry with her, god knows she would be, too, but there's a November chill in the air that ruffles his hair and brightens his eyes and nose and cheeks, and she thinks, _We're going to make it through this_.

(Don't ask her how she knows, okay-

She just freaking does.)

* * *

And they don't go back to being best friends immediately, and he keeps her at a distance for a while, most of their junior year, but it's okay, because Emma is going to wait.

Seriously. She can do this whole patience thing.

At least, she thinks she can, but then her idiot step-brother drops the bomb that not only is he marrying MM, he's taking a job in New freaking York and bringing Mary Margaret with him.

And Emma's rightfully upset, because his dad's cool and everything, but he's not her dad, and her mom is emotionally absent and she doesn't know where he dad is or if he even know she exists, so David's the only family she's really got, and the bastard is taking her best girl friend and up and moving, and yeah, she goes to college in Maine, which is not that far from New York, but seriously, it's the fact that he did this and didn't warn her or tell her, and the moment he leaves she's going to be all alone.

And Emma is hard and tough, she's leather jackets and tight jeans, but she's human, too, and she doesn't want to be alone. No one does.

So when David tells her, she swears and yells and maybe breaks a bottle or two, but mostly she's just scared that after he's gone that'll be it, she'll be alone, so she ends up walking six blocks to Killian's dorm and waiting outside in a slight drizzle until he answers.

"Bloody hell, Swan," he yelps when he comes in, and she feels like rolling her eyes and shaking her fist at the heavens because once again, he's just got a towel on and he's obviously just gotten out of the shower, and she truly has the worst timing that has ever existed ever. "Come in, you're probably freezing, you crazy woman."

And he throws an old hoodie and a pair of basketball shorts at her and tells her to change because her clothes are kind of soaked while he makes her some Irish tea, and she does and god, she should make it a point to wear his clothes more often because good lord, they're soft and they smell like him and she could almost go to sleep right now.

Right fucking now.

But she doesn't; she's awake when he comes back into the room, thankfully clothed, a bottle of tequila and a china cup and saucer with some tea, and she doesn't even have to ask because she knows he'll have made it the way she likes, because he knows her.

And that's when she starts thinking, what if it was Killian that was leaving? What if she couldn't come over here in the rain and sit on his floor and wear his clothes and have Irish tea made for her the exact way she likes it? What if she lost him?

And the feeling that comes along with that thought is fucking unbearable, and that's when Emma thinks that she may have stumbled into loving him, somewhere along the way.

But being in love with him, it's complicated, because you can't be in love with someone who doesn't love you back. Love is a verb, it's a two-person action, and Emma screwed it up so badly between them that friendship has been hard, and kissing him again is pretty much not going to happen, as much as she wants it to.

(can you really blame her for wanting to? He's a damn good kisser.)

Emma's all prepared for him to ask her what's wrong, try and force her to talk, but he doesn't; he sinks on the floor next to her, leans back against the couch, hands her tea and a shot of tequila and puts on _A Very Potter Musical_.

(Because yes, he loves it and she loves it and they're both dorks, okay, she can acknowledge that.)

And they trade the bottle back and forth and she drinks her tea and halfway through _Potter Musical_, she leans over, pauses it, and says, "David's moving."

And he takes another shot and says, "Aye."

"Are you going to leave, too?" she asks him, and normally she wouldn't do that, but she's kind of maybe drunk and she needs to know, okay, so don't judge her.

"I'm not in the habit of running, Swan," he tells her, and twists around so he's facing her and their eyes are locking. "Besides, a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets."

And Emma just knows that what he wants is her, what he's wanted since the very beginning is her, and he's making her stomach tingle in the low light that's coming from his lamp, but it's not because he's sexy. It's because he's looking at her like he would die before he hurt her, like he really would have fought for her if she'd just let him.

And Emma just wants to take this moment to say that she's finally figured out why Killian has always been so unbelievably attractive to her; it's not because of the way his features fit together, the random collection he was born with; what makes him so irresistible to her is the looks he gives her, the differing shades of his eyes, the way he talks to her and knows her and helps her without taking care of her, because he knows she can do that herself.

Emma's not stupid; she knows this is way too soon, knows that the wounds she's given him are still too fresh, but she's drunk (not really; he's not the only one with an insanely high alcohol tolerance) and god, how has she never realized how much she loves him? Because now that she knows it, it almost hurts, how in love with him she is.

(_How in love with him you've always been_, a part of her wants to say.)

So Emma's not-really drunk, and Emma's in love, and Emma leans over and kisses him.

(And apparently it wasn't as 'too soon' as she thought it was, because he kisses her back instantly and puts his hands on her waist and she scoots forward until she's practically straddling him, and god, she loves him, she loves him way too much, so much there's no way she'll ever be able to hide it and no way she'd even want to, and his hands are on her skin, and the sensation is perfection.

It's all perfection, and outside it's stopped raining and the stars are twinkling and she kisses _'i'm sorry'_ into his skin and cements it with _'i love you'_, a thousand of each, and if it was anybody else she might be worried, but this Killian and he will understand her. Even if she doesn't say it, he will feel it in her touch on the planes of his stomach and the crook on his neck and his collarbone and every part of him she can reach, even the bits of it she can't, and god, if she could kiss '_i love you'_ onto his chest and let it sink all the way down into his heart and his very soul and write it onto his DNA until it's copied into every bit of him, she would do it.

She can't, though, so she settles for running her nails down his back lightly, feeling him shudder, and hoping he gets the picture.)

* * *

She wakes up the next morning and somehow they found their way into his bed, and he's still asleep next to her, and he looks so peaceful, so happy in his sleep, and Ruby is going to die if she ever hears about this, because all those lies Emma told while they painted nails and had chick time?

Yeah, totally _not_ lies.

**At. All. **

She slides out from underneath his arm and searches for his hoodie, finds it in the corner of the room where he threw it last night, slips it on and pads to his kitchen.

She's got flour her hands and is looking for mixing bowls when she hears his footsteps on the wood, and she looks up and smiles, and he says, "Emma Swan, if you run away now, don't bother coming back because I will never forgive you."

And she could tell him that she's not going to leave, that you'd drag her kicking and screaming before she left this room and even then she'd be shouting her love for him the whole damn time, but all those words are heavy and clumsy on her tongue, so instead she just says, "Pancakes or waffles?" and like always, he gets it.

A slow smile spreads across his face, bright and happy and full of him, and he walks over and kisses her and the flour bag slips out of her hands and breaks on the ground and coats their feet and ankles with powdery white but he keeps on kissing her, pulling away only to breathe, "I'll pick that up later," and to hoist her on his kitchen counter.

When he finally pulls away, she's on his counter and he's standing between her legs, and she takes his face in her hands, and there's traces of flower on him but he has never looked like this before, and she says, "I love you, you Potter-loving asshole."

And he grins back at her and says, "I know," and that right then?

That's when she knows that this is the real deal, meant to be, and she's not fooling or lying to herself.

And god, she loves him so much, and nothing has ever felt as right or as real.

* * *

(They kiss like that for a while, and then she pulls away and says, "You are going to sweep up that flour, right? Because if you track ants in here I am _not_ coming over again."

"Swan," he says gently. "Stop talking."

And she does.)

* * *

_You're my bright blue sky  
You're the sun in my eyes  
Oh baby, you're my life  
You're the reason why _

_we're on top of the world; we're on top of the world now, darling, so don't let go-_

_And, oh, we got time, yeah_  
_So darling, just say you'll stay right by my side_  
_And, oh, we got love, yeah_  
_Darling, just swear you'll stand right by my side_

_Be my forever, be my forever, be my forever. _


End file.
